Social Campaign ProRunning social media campaigns or competitions are fantastic methods of exposure, and can fit snugly into your longterm marketing plan.

These sorts of campaigns lend themselves very well to online platforms, and are great for building brand awareness.

Sharing and linking can be encouraged ad infinitum, especially if you include a sharing-of-your page button or logo on the pages of ‘participants component’ to your campaign.

That said, it’s tricky at times to avoid the common pitfalls of social media campaigns.

A badly run campaign can get you into trouble, break the law, and generally have the opposite of the desired effect.

Remember, when you mount a public relations campaign, you are pushing yourself into public visibility, so make sure you are comfortable and proud of the image you are creating.

The old adage ‘all publicity is good publicity’ isn’t necessarily true for commercial operations, so you have to be gaining attention for the right reasons to be successful. Make sure you browse through some other social media campaigns to see how others have done it, and take what good ideas you can.

Run Your Social Media Campaigns Like a Pro

  • Ensure your promotion is legal and legitimate. That means you have to comply with the Facebook and Twitter promotional guidelines. Some like to include a link to these guidelines when telling people about their promotion.
  • You certainly don’t have to include this link, but if you’re worried, it can make your promo seem legitimate to those who take part. This can be more difficult on Twitter than on Facebook.
  • If you are planning a very large-scale promotion, consider hiring a third-party service to take care of it, which may be more efficient. You can consult with experts and then decide to run the campaign yourself. Or you can just do all the research yourself and do it alone. Either way, you should be well-informed. Companies such as White Echo specialize in this.
  • You should also develop an app for your promotion. This is a great idea, but it’s not necessarily a must. Again, you can do this yourself or just use an ‘off the shelf’ app. When looking at other people’s promotions, look at what kind of app they have used.
  • If you’re doing a Facebook promotion, know that it’s against Facebook policy to directly reward a user for sharing. Make sharing incidental or potentially unrewarded in your promotion.
  • Remember, in the United States only the government can run lotteries, so make sure your promotion is NOT an illegal lottery!
  • Once you’re sure everything is legitimate and above board, and you have the right infrastructure and platform for your campaign, you can start thinking about the best way to build traffic and buzz!
  • Encourage visibility and viral sharing, and include a logo or something recognizable from your brand.
  • Encourage interaction and commenting. Social media is crowdsourced!
  • Share key events in the competition, such as beginning, ending, and large numbers of entrants.
  • Maintain your communications throughout the competition, don’t just set it up and let it run.
  • It’s ok to discuss a Twitter promotion on Facebook and vice versa. Share your promotion cross-media!

What do you think? Do you have success stories you can share? Or experienced epic social campaign fails? Woud love to hear your thoughts.

Danielle McAnn

Danielle McCann is an Australia-based freelance copywriter and social media expert.

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